Last Night at the Peekaboo Club

by Kelly Yandell

The bar stool made Lin’s butt hurt. He was sitting inside the door of the Peekaboo Club. A bouncer. There was one more door to go through before you saw any real action. His job was to make sure nobody came in stumbling drunk, and make sure they paid the cover. Slow nights on the stool always made his butt hurt, but he had long ago tired of seeing the dancing. It was dark and boring in the hall, but better than watching men be idiots. The girls were all better looking with their clothes on. He’d rather buy them a cup of coffee in the morning and hear about their real lives. 

He got up to wander around the dark vestibule but there was no place to go. Dante knew nothing about Hell. Be careful what you ask for. He looked through the small window on the door that separated the vestibule from the main bar. The walls pulsed. It seemed like more than noise. It was sonic torture. He was letting the new bouncer work the main floor looking for wandering hands, looking for drunks out of money. Those types had to go. The vestibule was as close to peace as he could find and still draw pay for his last few days working at the club.

The same song was pounding out of the door two years ago when Lin had followed four inebriated friends into the pitch dark on a weekend trip to Destin. They were all underage but nobody cared. They looked like loose money and that was more important than their age to the bouncer at the time. Predictably, his friends got more plowed. One friend, Davis, had pointed at one of the girls and yelled into Lin’s ear that she looked like his sister. Davis grabbed the girl’s rear as she was crawling down the catwalk to claim a folded bill and Lin, in a fit of reflexive justice, grabbed Davis out of the his chair and slammed him on the floor. “Don’t do that,” was all he said. The stripper turned and winked at Lin but otherwise didn’t break her stride, popping up on her stilettos, grinding and spinning and displaying her ass to no one in particular. Lin pulled his friend back up and looked at the paltry single dollar bill he had dropped on the floor. Davis was disoriented from the booze and the fast change in elevation. “You’re a real big spender, Davis. What’s she gonna do with that, go to McDonald’s?” Lin asked, as he dusted off cigarette butts and other flotsam from the floor off of his friend’s back, and tossed the bill onto the stage. 

Lin’s drunk pals were eventually escorted out. Lin was playing sweeper as always, looking around for dropped phones or keys and making sure all of the fools got out in one piece. Jerry, the owner of the club, pulled Lin away as he approached the door. “I need a guy like you around here,” he said. And here Lin had stayed. In Destin. At the Peekaboo. For two years. And, each night got longer. 

The money was good. College wrestling had made him tough. But he didn’t know where he was going in the world. Bouncing at a strip club in Destin seemed like as good a use of his time as anything else he had on tap. He wasn’t tall, but he made up for it in breadth and hard hitting velocity, with a low center of gravity that came like a semi. He told his folks back in Detroit that he was doing the books at a night club. Close enough.

The ruby vinyl seat cover depressed under his weight and he felt like a chicken sitting on eggs. I’m going to walk out this door tonight and I’m not coming back. As soon as Jerry OKs the new meat to watch them, I’m not coming back.

He got up once again and made a concerted effort to keep his legs straight as he reached for his toes. He made it to his ankles with a groan. Two years earlier he could have put both palms down on the floor. But he’d no sooner touch the floor or any other surface in the Peekaboo Club. I might as well go lick a pharmacy counter. The outer door opened and the bar funk flowed out the door for a brief second. Perfume and legs came in. Lin straightened up and saw a few days past eighteen and too much make-up standing in front of him. All he could really see was every one of his sister’s friends. Too young. Searching for something. 

“I’m looking for Jerry.” She had to half way yell over the noise coming from beyond.

“Of course you are. What’s your name?” He hadn’t meant to sound like such an asshole.

“Giselle.”

“Right. Got it. What’s your real name?”

The girl laughed. “What? You’ve heard that one before? I’m Jenny. It’s not much of a stripper name, though.” 

Lin was relieved that she had a sense of humor so close to the surface, a bit of self awareness.

“Keep Jenny to yourself. It’s beautiful. And nothing stays beautiful in here.”

“Jaded much…?” Jenny raised her eyebrows. “I won’t call you Thor if you won’t call me Giselle. So why don’t you tell me your real name.”

“Lin. L-i-n.”

“Nice to meet you L-i-n.”

“I didn’t mean to make fun of your stage name. I genuinely appreciate that it is not Candy, Dakota, Savanna, or Lexi.”

Jenny looked down the hallway into the lights and noise coming from the small window of the second door. Her smile was an attempt at confidence but here feet didn’t move. Lin had seen this before.

“Jenny, if I asked you to turn around and walk away from here, would you?”

“No. Why? What?” 

He saw that she was shifting between concern that she didn’t look sexy enough and fear that he was actually telling her that there were murderers inside. Her feet stayed in the same two spots. Lin looked down at them and wished to himself that they would just stay…right…there. Go no further. Red. Four inch. A small tattoo of ivy crawled up her left heel and just out of the shoe.

He stepped toward her. He wasn’t so tall as to intimidate her but she was primally wary. Lin held up his hands, palms towards her and got just close enough for her to hear him over the music without him needing to raise his voice. He knew Jerry watched the cameras. He’d be up to claim her soon enough.

“Jenny, if you go in there you will never leave the same. You will be changed. Your shoes are new. The tattoo on your ankle says you were trying to piss off your folks but not too much. You are healthy and tall there is a light in your eyes that says high school dance team or volleyball. If you think this is how you control your life it isn’t. In fifteen minutes you will be on a pole and every man in there will be jacking off to you in their minds. Some might even do it for real under the tables. I won’t let them touch you, but they will try. The money is good, but within three weeks Darlene and Chanel will have you hooked up with Ray who sits at the end of the bar selling drugs. First it will be pot and then it will be coke and then you will be giving half your money to him. Jerry takes part of Ray’s take, by the way. Hell, Jerry will give you your first Valium, just to help with your nerves. Or cheap champagne. Soon you will have hooked up with a meth using charmer who will beg you for the rest of your cash or steal it. You look nice. He probably won’t even have to hit you for it, but eventually he will just for fun. In three years you will be dead, pregnant, have hepatitis, or be so worked over you can’t get good shifts anymore. At that point you’ll start turning tricks unless your parents love you enough to come get you and put you in rehab when you finally call them crying.”

Her eyes were wide as saucers and she was silent. They stood there staring at each other. Minutes passed. 

“I’m leaving. I take it back. I won’t be here to keep them from touching you. I can’t watch this happen again.” He reached out to touch her hand. She let him. Then she pulled her hand away and looked into the noise again.

The song switched to a bubble gum pop song. He knew that meant that Danny, the youngest dancer until Jenny walked in that door, would be coming out in a plaid school girl get-up and pony tails, and all of the pervy old farts leering at the stage would get hard-ons and start whipping out bills.

“Please, Jenny. I don’t know you. But I know everything else. Or some version of everything else because I’ve watched you walk through this door a hundred times.”

“Giselle!”

The volume became deafening as the inner door opened. Jerry, a tall gray-haired man in a slightly too slick suit appeared in the hallway, reaching out toward Jenny. His purple silk tie was meant to put women at ease, at least that’s what he’d told Lin every time. Purple, pink, something playful. Not a power tie. The suit brought the girls in, Jerry said. It was classy. They want to work somewhere classy, he said. If he looked rich when they walked in, they’d think he’d make them rich and the deal was instantly done. Jerry was carrying two glasses of champagne in one hand, the stems between his fingers. There were cherries in glasses. A drop of Chambord to create a pink glow. Just a drop. Not the good champagne, Jerry always said. Never the good stuff, because eighteen year olds would never know the difference. And he never gave them a second glass to compare.

“Giselle, yes? What a gorgeous name.”

Jenny looked at Lin as though one last part of her needed to cling to him. 

Jerry put his arm around her waist. “Giselle! You are smoking hot, woman. Jerry pulled back and took her hand and twirled her around, appraising her favorably. Not a creepy old man appraisal. Just straight forward appraisal of merchandise and a sound of assurance that the ass in front of him was worth a whole lot of money. “You are the sexiest lady we’ve seen in ages. You are going to kill it at the Peekaboo. So natural. The girls will help you with your make up. You are gorgeous just the way you are, of course. Isn’t she, Lin? But, stage lights require a certain boldness.” Lin? Isn’t she a star?” Jerry often used Lin’s voice to close the deal. Lin had that touch of midwestern boyishness in his voice that always made the girls believe. Yes, they were stars. Stars in a dark box. Their power and energy fading from the moment the door closed behind them the first time.

Lin looked at Jenny once more. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this sad. He needed to call his sister in Ohio. He needed to go meet her new twins. He needed to take his dad to a Tiger’s game. He needed to walk out. Now. “Yeah, sure, Jerry. Good luck, Giselle. Really.” Lin looked down and then back at Jerry. “Hey, Jerry. Thanks for everything, man. But I’ve gotta bounce. Tell the ladies to keep my share from tonight. Just a goodbye.”

“Lin, you still owe me three days. That turd I hired isn’t ready yet. He’s still drooling over the product and is too star struck when the athletes come in. I need you man. Not yet. I’ll give you a couple of extra hundred a night. OK. Good.” Jerry turned away and laced his fingers through Giselle’s. 

She turned to meet Lin’s eyes. He saw her mouthing the word product as Jerry tugged her toward the inner door. 

Lin turned and walked out into the night, gulping in the first hit of Destin air as though he had just surfaced from a record setting free dive into a sewer.

He looked in every direction and took several more deep breaths before choosing a path, heading toward Zeke’s, an all night burger joint three blocks away. Food. A milkshake. Something right. He listened to his footsteps to regain a rhythm, to get his imagination of the announcer’s voice out of his head. “Put your hands together for GISELLE gentlemen, She’s a new filly in the stable!” He shook his head and tried to get the words out of his brain. Step step step. That’s it Lin. One step in front of the other until you’ve eaten and showered and gotten on a plane home. 

He stopped in front of Zeke’s and peered through the glass. Zeke himself was flipping patties on the griddle. Zeke looked up and saw Lin standing there. He gave Lin a hello wave with his spatula and then cut his eyes with a smile to Lin’s left. He flipped the spatula in his hand, winked at Lin, and motioned to the couple to come on in.

Lin turned and saw Jenny, just his height, standing next to him. She was holding the red fuck me pumps in her hand by the heels. 

“These hurt like hell,” she said. “I chased you all the way here barefoot down the sidewalk. I think you owe me a double double and chili fries for that, at least.” She smiled at him. “I’m hoping you meant that speech as an awkward compliment and actually meant it when you said I should walk out the door.”

“Jenny. Yes.” He claimed another deep breath from the night. Relief, and was it joy?

Lin opened the door to the diner and held it open. 

“Thank you,” they both said, and laughed.